Transducibatur
by Tophlet
Summary: Dinner at Hogwarts was never what you could consider a normal affair, but enormous, glowing transmutation circles were outside even the school's parameters of weirdness. And they certainly didn't have any business burning themselves into the stonework. On temporary hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

To students who'd attended Hogwarts under the revered tutelage of the late Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall's introductory address to the school lacked a certain amount of flair. However, as the previous headmaster's influence brought one of the greatest conflicts in modern wizarding history to those students' front door, they had little cause to complain. Besides that, no students remained who knew Professor Dumbledore in life; but on the occasion that one was summoned to the headmaster's office, the jolly-eyed gentleman's reassuring portrait set many a teenager at ease.

The students had come to enjoy the quiet strength in which they rested under the watchful eye of Professor McGonagall. Hogwarts enjoyed a peace under her reign. A relative peace, at least, which regularly included the crazed antics of Peeves and similarly minded youths. The castle had settled. It breathed.

And in the midst of a particularly drawn out yawn, was knocked back on its heels.

Every student was present when the Great Hall started to glow with an eerie blue light. The Christmas holidays were approaching and the room was filled with the happy babble of upcoming plans. Gay chatter turned to shocked confusion. A strange array appeared beneath the tables, rising up the wall. It took the Headmaster the space of a second to order the children evacuated, with every teacher who remained to help in removing the tables.

Professor McGonagall's voice rang clear through the room, "Shield the hall! Contain it!" Many of the teachers had heard this tone before. This was the woman who faced down Death Eaters in the Battle of Hogwarts. Gone was velvet that oft' laced her voice, out came the steel. "Protect our students, whatever this may be."

All the while the circle glowed. What began as a soft blue gained intensity until it was almost white in its brightness. Something was happening. But what it was, they couldn't tell. The light was blinding and protective shields did nothing for their eyes.

And then it was gone, leaving them all blinking like babes in sunlight. One by one they refocused to the epicenter of the event from which they heard the sound of increasingly labored breathing. A figure lay naked, curled on its side, the target of no less than twelve experienced and battle proven witches and wizards.

The figure did nothing. No move to observe its surroundings. No wand that anyone could see. Nothing but a weakly curled fist.

Well this was going nowhere. Wand at the ready, Minerva made the first few steps into the array. It had burned itself into the very stones beneath her feet. The closer she got, the more she noted details that begged the lowering of her wand. Skin and bones suggested undernourishment. Long, unkempt hair obscured what the professor was beginning to believe would be a youthful face. The young man (for he was naked and she was now close enough to see) had absurdly long nails which were brittle and chipped. Closer now to hear, the labored breathing hid what sounded like halted keens of pain.

"Young man-" he flinched away and curled inwards, away from the noise.

He was just a child and yet he looked to be three shakes away from death.

Well. Not on her watch. Not in her school.

"Fetch Madam Pomfrey."

* * *

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	2. Chapter 2

There are some moments on some days which are reserved for peace; brief respites from pressure: chaos calms, stress retreats. They do not occur everyday (indeed, some days they are not needed), and on some days they are a deliberate necessity.

Poppy Pomfrey took a moment for herself. She deserved it. She'd lived through two wars, more quidditch injuries then you could shake a wand at, _the Weasley twins_, and was more adept at triage than any school matron had a right to be. In truth, Hogwarts had entrusted her with an abnormally large percentage of difficult cases. Notwithstanding, Poppy dealt with each trial with as much aplomb as was in her, but was never so proud as to not defer a patient to more specialized care. Unfortunately, she feared she'd reached such a point with the blond-haired-boy.

She'd only just made him comfortable enough to sleep, having finally settled on a strong numbing charm after a frustrating amount of trial and error. The last few hours had been trying for the both healer and patient and she was glad of the quiet. Yet, even that was to be short lived. Someone just entered the wing, and Poppy would know that purposeful stride anywhere.

"How is he?"

So much for a quiet morning.

* * *

Someone else had entered the room. He couldn't tell what they were saying. He couldn't tell a lot of things. It was really hard not to get overwhelmed. Logically, logically he should be paying attention. To everything. To the room. To their voices. He should be making plans. Brother always made plans.

He had expected the weakness. After all, his body had been wasting outside the gate for years, only sustained by a tenuous connection to his brother's. He'd expected to return to upheaval and fire, somewhere in the rubble of Central's great battle. He hadn't expected his nerves to cry at every sensation, or for a sudden influx of sound to leave him helpless.

He hadn't expected the adrenaline. Shakes ripping through him like a leaf.

These people had some kind of alchemical amplifiers: those sticks they were carrying. He knew they were important, terrifying. They'd moved him without touching him, tried to make him drink things, and with one wave of that stick made his whole body numb.

This numbness...it was worse than the armor...

They were talking now. He should be paying attention.

But crying was different than he remembered and it took effort to keep silent. She still thought he was sleeping.

* * *

Though Minerva would never put it in such terms, she was anxious for information. The analysis of that transmutation circle was slow going, but what had been gleaned so far was troubling. It was familiar enough to be enticing, yet foreign enough to frustrate. Their potions master didn't have a particular strength in the field. They had every textbook they could find from the library with no similar references. She feared they knew just enough to put themselves in a very, very dangerous position.

Granted, they'd only been at it since supper. But 3 a.m. was pushing it, even for (_especially_ for) the instructive body of Hogwarts. She suspected the wee hours were pushing Poppy as well, if the way she was collapsed into her chair was any indicator.

"How is he?"

"Asleep. Finally."

"He's not dressed?"

"I only just managed to get the sheet on him. His nerves are oversensitive, a numbing charm is the best I can do for now. His throat's too weak to take any of the more robust potions; it's been a struggle all evening, I can't communicate with him. Effective treatment requires feedback."

Minerva took a closer look. There was something odd about the way he was breathing.

"Poppy, are those tears?" both women moved immediately, "Could he still be in pain?"

Madam Pomfrey didn't dignify the query with a response. She knew it was not doubt in her skills which prompted the question, but concern for the child. She lit her wand immediately to assess him. Awashed in brightness, she could see salt tracks and ruddy cheeks, a clear flinch and a flicker of fear.

"Oh dear," she realized in dawning horror, "Minerva. He's a muggle."

"Crivens."

* * *

**My many thanks to you all! ** What an incredible response! I had not dared to imagine that so many people would enjoy what I'm writing. I appreciate your support. If you have any suggestions, tidbits, critiques, find flaws of logic, please let me know and leave a review!


	3. Chapter 3

Minerva was not often at a loss for words. Words were a point of family pride, to be honest, but at this point she was dumbstruck. They'd lost him. A half-dead, waif of a boy with more hair than _sense_, apparently, and they'd _lost him_. She imagined the room looked rather like she felt: disheveled and just a little bit broken. It wasn't a physical injury, but Minerva had just witnessed something beyond what she knew to be possible, the implications of which put her students in an unknown state of danger.

Once she and Poppy realized (perhaps incorrectly, given new information) that the boy was a muggle, they had decisions to make and conclusions to avoid. If he truly was a muggle, then someone extremely powerful had deliberately sent him to their doorstep (the back of Minerva's mind quailed at the possibility of a new war). Whatever the boy remembered would help them but he was clearly traumatized by whatever it was he'd experienced.

The two debated in hushed whispers about their best course of action. After what seemed like an unnecessary amount of disagreement they settled on a memory charm. The boy's aversion to potions had been made quite clear not hours earlier so a sleeping draught was out of the question. In fact, it was only their intention to change his memories of the last few hours as they hadn't meant to frighten him with the unfamiliarity of magic. Memory charms were used on muggles often enough, anyway.

Neither woman, however, quite expected the muggle behind them to watch their every move and catalogue every whisper. They were talking about him, now, their attention clearly focused tightly on him. So the boy listened and watched with a sense of urgent self-preservation. Who knew what else these strange alchemists could do with their amplifiers. Numb or not he could still move. If he could move, he could clap and if he could clap, he might have a chance at getting away. He hadn't been very aware on the way to this room, but if he managed enough of a head start he could probably figure his way out.

His heartbeat started rising with every glance the older women threw in his direction. When they reached a decision and started to turn, the shaking was back. A slew of different chemicals ran their way through his body, prepping what little muscle he had left for a fight. One twitch of that wand and he would bolt. One twitch.

It didn't matter how cautiously the women approached him or how placating their voices were. The boy backed up to the stone wall behind him.

One twitch.

* * *

**Cliffhangerrrrrrrrr!** I trust y'all enjoyed this chapter! It's a bit shorter than I'm sure you'd like but I've always enjoyed frequent updates to one every few months (maybe). Thanks for leaving a review!


	4. Chapter 4

Hogwarts had seen her fair share of desperate, tired students. Be it the keen pressure of adolescence (buffetted by favored foods in the Great Hall or the kind word of a passing portrait), or the shattering hardships of blood and fire, she'd sheltered them all. She knew the weight of a step ready to collapse on a bed. She knew the hard grip of clammy fingers on a handrail. She knew the echoes of exhausted breaths running through rounded corridors. The only language she spoke was magic and soul.

This new soul burned like fire: racing through her halls, ripping open walls. That fire was burning his body to ash, weak and brittle like black paper. It didn't take him long to tire, hidden behind a suit of armor with an emotion she couldn't hope to understand. Sometimes a castle could only do so much. Sometimes it could do exactly what it needs to. The armor shifted and stood an earnest watch over the burning boy. Exhaustion had caught up to him and, for the first time in five years, he slept.

* * *

Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, was more recently known as the Man Who Slept Under His Desk When On Night Duty. As far as bureaucratic organizations went, the Ministry of Magic operated fairly well from nine to five. It was just that dark wizards liked proclaim their superiority at all hours of the night and had an unhealthy disregard for regular office hours. The auror office had a civic duty to respond and had since taken to intraoffice slumber parties.

With all the changes Harry and his friends had made to the department, you'd think they'd have added a bed or two.

At half past two in the morning, Harry Potter woke to an interoffice memo poking him repeatedly in the face. At half past two and five seconds, Harry Potter sat up with urgency and hit his head on the aforementioned desk. He devoured the letter. An unknown visitor had _appeared_ within the Great Hall just hours before. Appeared. Within Hogwarts grounds. The unplottable, anti-apparition-charmed school grounds. According to the missive, the letter that arrived by owl from Headmaster McGonagall was sent to the Ministry as a courtesy rather than a request for aid. Apparently whoever had originally received the owl was of like-mind with Harry. An Auror ought to at least _check it out._ He dashed off a memo to thank the sender, grabbed a pinch of floo powder and the Marauder's Map from his desk drawer, and was off.

Mr. Potter's arrival in the hospital wing was both celebrated and bemoaned. He was just moments late. The Headmaster and Healer were still picking themselves out of rubble and the young boy he'd heard about on his visit to the Great Hall was nowhere to be found. Just the vestiges of what looked like a gigantic stone hand protruding from the wall, an overturned bed, and a strange column which disappeared into the ceiling.

Harry was rightly flummoxed.

"What happened?"

McGonagall had no time for niceties, "Well don't just stand there, Mr. Potter. Go after him!"

"Where is he?" he asked, torn between racing off to do as she said and helping the two ladies extract themselves from the stone fingers. The glare Minerva turned on him held a clear command.

"Up!"

* * *

_ -gate!_

_ No, stop! _

_ That's not-_

**Welcome back, Mr. Al-chem-ist.**

_ wait_

_Wait!_

**You're not the one I was looking for, but you'll do.**

_That's not my gate!_

* * *

It took him a moment to wake up; confused, groggy, and incredibly irritated. It took him another moment and a fair amount of emotional processing to realize he had _woken up_. With sticky eyes and everything. But without Brother there to rejoice with him, the elation itself felt hollow. The young alchemist thought with a moment of bitterness that he would have to get used to it. This place was full of new and dangerous things. It would be pointless to lose focus over all the firsts that were sure to pass without celebration.

Thinking of focus, something had woken him...

A green eye peered at him from beyond the armor with a wand poised to wave.

Palms slammed together without a thought. Silica pulled from stone into glass, thick and hard, reinforced by traces of carbon. He had chosen this spot for its discretion and defensibility. Curled up and naked, back and knees scraping against stone, the kid genius wondered what his sleep deprived self had been thinking. How was he going to get out of this?

Beyond the glass, Mr. Potter was busy asking the armor to remove itself and it was staunchly (rudely) refusing. Sentient decoration was all well and good but when it actively interfered with pursuit, Harry was tempted to tamper with its charm work. The Boy Who Lived reigned in his frustration and with cooler head chose to levitate the indignant knight out of the way, binding it where it stood to prevent further interference.

He cautiously knelt to look in the space again, wand poised to deflect oncoming attacks. It would be an understatement to simply say the sight surprised him (the glass surprised him enough to leave another bruise). It pulled his heart to the bottom of his belly, knocking the breath out of him with a strange sense of deja vu. He would later be able to articulate just what drew him to pity the boy's situation. It had only been one glance but it made a powerful impression. Gaunt and unwashed, caged but willing to fight through on sheer determination alone; the boy reminded him of Sirius all those years ago, fighting against a world determined to bring him down.

Harry forced himself through the sudden onslaught of empathy and quickly pulled out of sight when a stone hand reached to grab where he'd just stood. As an auror he had the responsibility to make sure this boy neither came to nor caused further harm. Without a word he vanished the glass and levitated the boy that struck out fiercely from the hovel. Hair and limbs whipped around in wild protest, the teenager working desperately to reach something solid. A full body bind followed soon after, preventing another transmutation by a hair's breadth. Harry told himself it was for the boy's safety, but the guilt that gnawed at the back of his mind spoke louder. He couldn't handle watching the boy struggle.

* * *

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	5. Chapter 5

The naked boy genius in want of a good bath was very nearly onto something. He'd struggled against the bind for a time but after that venture proved fruitless he turned his attention inward. Right before the spell hit he'd been prepared to try a combustion transmutation. It wasn't like the Colonel's gloves had ever been a secret and he was just desperate enough that a transmutation literally blowing up in his face would be a _good_ thing. His hands had so nearly connected before they'd been strapped back to his sides by an invisible force.

What was the equivalency for that, anyway? Did it have to do with how bodies worked? Did it somehow interfere with the biochemical process? He knew the chemicals that _made up_ the body by heart but he and Ed had been naïve enough to not put much thought into how minutely they _worked_. And then he'd ended up as a suit of armor...a suit of armor that didn't have to _touch_ his transmutation circles to get them to work. He may have been a genius, but he'd always just assumed it was because he had no physical body that his soul could activate the circles remotely so...why did there seem to be something off about that hypothesis? What was the difference between a transmutation circle in the physical world and one he held in his mind? Neither Hohenheim nor the homunculus Father even needed to _move_ to transmute...

There was hardly any point in focusing on external stimulus at this point. As he and Brother had done so often in the past, the boy shut out the world.

* * *

Harry trudged back to the hospital wing, quarry in tow. It was early enough that the halls were empty, but Harry strategically levitated the kid's hair to cover the more sensitive bits. He was a potential threat, sure, but that didn't mean he needed to be humiliated.

It had taken him the better part of half an hour to find the boy, following his strange path of construction. Harry had actually passed the kid's hiding place in the first go, only doubling back when he didn't see any additional modifications to the school's architecture. The only thing that tipped him off was the unusually alert and defensive suit of armor. Odd, that.

Strange, too, that throughout the entire ordeal not a single jinx, hex, or curse was directed towards any of them. In fact Harry was surprised that he was able to subdue the kid at all, adept as he seemed to be at performing wandless magic. He hoped there were answers to be found back in the hospital wing. He didn't like their options otherwise.

The two women had succeeded in putting the hospital wing back to rights with the exception of the column which raised to the ceiling. Minerva stalked around it, face drawn into a peculiar, speculative frown. Here and there she would flick her wand, gathering information and analyzing what she'd found.

A small part of Harry wanted to frown at that. Neither woman had gone after him to see if he needed back up. At one time they would have been in a tizzy over his safety...and then the larger part of him remembered that _he_ was the professional dark wizard catcher on premises. He was, officially, an adult. Balls.

Poppy deftly took over the levitation charm, setting the boy back on his bed, preserving his modesty with a sheet once more.

Harry let out a sigh he didn't known he'd been holding, "So who is he?"

The response he received was a distracted, "We don't know," from the Headmistress.

"Where's he from?"

"Don't know."

"Did he tell you why he's here?"

"No."

"He's been here for hours and you don't know anything? Seriously?" They really _did_ need an auror if they hadn't even tried to get the basics. Minerva hadn't often been on the receiving end of Harry's sass while he'd been at school, but he'd never been against using it against her.

"You're welcome to try yourself, Harry," Poppy offered with a touch of nerve as she busied herself with diagnostic charms, "He's tight lipped and foreign. The handful of words I did manage to get out of him were in no language I've heard of. At least we know he's not a muggle. Unless you're a legilimens you're just as informed as the rest of us."

Well, there's a thought.

"...I am."

* * *

The thing about legilimency is that it requires eye contact. When your subject looks to be in a coma and won't focus on _anything _that feat is made difficult. They'd tried everything: loud noises, unpleasant smells, eventually even removing the jinx that kept the boy bound. All results were identical: nothing. No response. The next step would be to use some sort of magic on him again, but Poppy was firmly against it. She was monitoring the boy closely and nearly about to put her foot down.

"We can't risk spooking him. He's severely dehydrated, incredibly malnourished; I'm surprised he was able to make it as far as you say, Harry. If he goes running across half the castle again there's no telling how long he'll last or if we'll even be able to reach him if he does a better job of pinning us this time."

There were probably a million reasons Harry could use to counter Poppy's argument but _dear lord_ it was past four in the morning and adrenaline had abandoned him. Was there a reason they couldn't wait till the morning? One sloppy hand pushed through his hair while the other shoved itself in his pocket. It was slightly uncomfortable with the parchment crinkled up in—oh.

_Oh._

"What if we tried his name?" he asked, sheepishly. Damnit. This would have been useful to remember an hour ago. He cringed partially in apology, partially in anticipation of what was sure to be well deserved retribution.

He could have saved them a lot of time if he'd just _remembered_ and it seemed the women agreed.

McGonagall swiped the Marauder's Map from Harry's lank hands to _thwack_ the Gryffindor's head, "It seems battle reflexes aren't a match for common sense!" Had Harry been told that he would end his night being scolded by his former head of house, he might have let the whole thing rest until daylight. As it was, he stood quietly under her ire and ignored a grumbled quip that sounded suspiciously similar to _this is why you weren't in Ravenclaw._

But at least they finally had a lead on his name. Harry unfolded the parchment in anticipation, swore to the enchantments that he was up to no good, and then there it was: a jumbled confusion of consonants and vowels until the syllables rested.

* * *

Alchemical amplifiers...there had to be something to that which he and Ed hadn't considered. They had searched so long before understanding the dark truth about the Philosopher's Stone, focusing their drive and ambition on some incredible substance that would somehow make them greater than they were. The strange thing was he _felt _more powerful here than he ever had in Amestris. He was weak and tired to the bone but alchemy had coursed through him in a torrent of energy. As impossible as it seemed to his mind, energy flowed more readily here than even after the homunculus Father's barrier to true alchemy was lifted. It was like the elements here _wanted _to change, _wanted _to shift, like they were _helping. _ Hohenheim had said that the souls inside him had _wanted _to help—was this what he meant? There was something there-but then something snapped him out of his reverie with uncompromising force:

"Alphonse?"

* * *

The sensation of plunging into someone else's emotions and memories was never pleasing to Harry. He was a foreign entity, unwelcome. Perhaps it was this reluctance which prevented him from ever truly mastering the craft. When Harry first applied himself in earnest to become a legilimens in the aftermath of Voldemort's fall, the strangeness of it had chewed him up and spit him out. It was absolutely nothing like he'd imagined as a child. Snape had said as much, of course, but there's no teacher like the hard lesson of experience. Harry was nothing if not determined, and the necessity of legilimency while he, Ron, and Neville rounded up straggling Death Eaters required him to learn and separate the muck from the mire.

Sometimes finding the enemy necessitated entering the mind of a victim. He disliked that the most. A twisted, sick, raving madman he could handle; the abject terror and panic of a victim, he could not. It always left him a mess afterwards. He honestly didn't know which scenario to hope for.

"Alphonse?" he asked, and the boy's eyes locked onto him with fierce clarity.

Harry Potter plunged into Alphonse Elric's mind. He was completely unprepared.


	6. Chapter 6

**Strap yourselves in, folks.**

* * *

Through bumbling trials and errors, Harry had grasped that legillimency was less about words and more about intent and feeling. Memories carried emotions like baggage, leaving imprints of the heart on his mind. It was not strange to him, then, that he did not understand a single word that flew through his brain. What he _did_ understand were the _emotions_. His own inability to separate him from his own (which put an early stop to his career as an Occlumens) made him incredibly able to suss them out in others.

What he knew, absolutely knew, after treading through the waters of Alphonse Elric's mind was that the boy was incredible. Battles against seemingly inhuman foes, scores of beings adept at wandless magic, that strange room underground and a man attached to a grotesque throne...throughout it all Alphonse (if there was one word he could pick out over and over it was his name: everyone called him "Al." But Harry didn't yet have the right), throughout everything Alphonse was _resilient_. There was a fierce determination that seemed to thread itself through every desperate hour. Oh there was surprise and there were moments of fear, nights of loneliness, but Harry felt kinship. The circumstances of his life were horrible and there was no point in trying to make sense of it all right this second—clearly there was an abundance of complicated, disastrous history if all the destruction was any indication—but Alphonse's response to the cacophony of battle was to dig in and fight his damnedest alongside and for his friends. A Gryffindor if he ever saw one.

Slowly, the Auror became distracted, following a thread of perplexing images. Something was superimposed, the ghost of a video, in the memories of Alphonse Elric's mind. Like a TV antenna picking up two channels, there was always another image swimming behind the first. A time or two he thought he could make out the boy with the long blond hair, but the mind and emotion clearly originated from that hulking suit of armor. So he pulled on the thread, tugging along, hoping to follow it through the maze of Al's mind to where the double memory he harbored made sense, not wary that there might be a minotaur at the end.

The world washed in white. There he sat, the emaciated boy, and there he stood, the metal man. Harry eagerly watched as they grasped hands and the mystery suddenly made sense. He still had no answers as to the _hows_ and the _whys, _but somehow Al's consciousness had been separated from his body and _that_ made sense. What didn't make sense was the strange feeling that he'd been here before and kept expecting a train to pass through, or why every time he glanced at that gigantic mass of stone he expected it to sway like a curtain. What made no sense whatsoever to the point of _revulsion_ was a set of pearly white teeth, grinning in the nothingness like a madman.

**Welcome back, Mr. Al-chem-ist.**

He was prey, frozen by the roar of a lion. In this world where words were babel, shunted aside and ignored, _these_ words twisted and resonated through his very bones. Crawling up his spine, permeating every cell of his brain. They came from inside his own mind and Harry _didn't put them there._

Suddenly he was overshadowed by an ornate portal so unerringly _real_ that he could feel the texture of stone by looking at it. The doors opened and looked right back.

**You're not the one I was looking for, but you'll do.**

And then: terror. Terror that took him longer than a moment to realize it wasn't his. Hundreds of hands, so dark that light itself didn't escape, had hold of Alphonse. He was screaming, grabbing, clawing with every ounce of strength left in his broken body. Rational thought flew to the wayside. Part of Harry's mind knew he couldn't do a thing—these were memories, after all, his body shouldn't even _be _here—but he surged forward to try and grab Al's hands anyway. Thick strands of nothingness tore the boy from beyond his grasp, dragging him into the black.

**Ah ah ah. No fair peeking, Mr. Wizard.**

The stone resealed with finality, echoing through to his core.

Alphonse was gone. There were no traces of his resolute mind to comfort Harry in this space.

Al was _gone_.

**Har-ry Pot-ter.**

Harry flushed with panic, rooted to the spot.

Sweat beaded on his brow, frightened prey in a lion's den.

**There's no such thing as a free show.**

Darkness swallowed everything.

* * *

It was later.

They still weren't sure what happened.

Harry had pulled out of the boy's mind with a heaving gasp, eyes flickering about in an emotion Minerva never thought she'd see on his face. Alphonse mirrored his expression of disbelief, eyes fixed on them all like he was going to do something stupid. In his daze, Harry must have noticed the subtle repositioning of Minerva's wand and so lifted a faltering hand to stop her.

A whisper crawled from the Auror's throat: Al's name breathed in apology.

She'd have imagined the teenager would soften at sympathy but he drew his lips together and set his jaw, intrepidly meeting Potter's eyes. Harry was trying to stifle tremors and this boy, _Alphonse_, met his gaze with strength.

"Quarantine the Great Hall," Harry instructed, not hiding the quaver in his voice.

Minerva summoned her favorite house elf to deliver curt instructions. She appeared with a wild _crack,_ putting Al back on reluctant defense.

Having come to a decision the auror gingerly released his wand, placing it carefully within Al's reach on the bed.

That stunt sure as _hell_ better work, or Minerva would have Harry's _head_ when it came back to bite them. They waited on tenterhooks as Al deliberated his next action.

The two women sighed in palpable relief when all he did was move it to the side table. Apparently they'd reached some sort of agreement.

It was safe to move again. The house elf left to do as it had been instructed, Poppy strode forward with a reproving look to her now taciturn patient, and so help her if Minerva had to drag Harry to her office by his ears she would do it.

* * *

She technically shouldn't have access to those memories. Harry should have headed straight back to the Ministry to file his report and lock the little silver wisps in the evidence and testimony cabinet. But he couldn't really muster up the energy to care about protocol, but at least he'd remembered to take back his wand. He sat in a daze, waiting for the Headmistress to extract herself from the Pensieve so he could collect this thoughts and go home. The light from the device danced around the room, and Harry could feel Dumbledore and Snape peering at him from their portraits.

With half-hearted petulance he lazily grabbed a nearby hat to lay over his eyes, intent on shunning their gazes until McGonagall finished.

"_Back again, Mr. Potter? You must realize this is excessive._"

Of course, Harry groaned to himself, of course it couldn't just be an ordinary hat.

"_I resent the implication, Mr. Potter. Even in the days of my stitching I was far from ordinary. Now what has gotten you so out of sorts?" _It was less a question and more an excuse to go rummaging about. The Sorting Hat rarely had the opportunity to venture 'round someone's mind twice, let alone three times. In fact he'd already finished his song for the new year and the way Harry had barged through the Headmistress's office earlier that night just spoke of intrigue.

_"Been running around in someone else's head, I see. You've made a pig's ear of it, haven't you?"_

He honestly didn't need the criticism. He was tired, taxed, and wanted nothing more than to be in bed, to sleep without the curse of that grin in his head. The warm blaze of anger against the Hat honestly felt better than the fog that had turned his mind to sludge. He felt perfectly justified in throwing it across the room and prepared to do just that when its words deposited themselves in Harry's mind.

_"You really have no idea what you're dealing with."_

It could have been condescending. It could have been rude and, in fact, Harry expected it to be so. But the statement was weighed down by the past, resigned to the future. It wasn't a hopeful feeling.

And you do? Harry wondered wearily.

"_I've been on this earth over 1,000 years, Mr. Potter."_

That's not an answer.

"_Is it not?"_

"Harry?" That was McGonagall, wasn't it?

"Yes, Professor?"

"Here," she extended the memories back to Harry, swirling in a stoppered flask, just as weary as he. He wondered what she experienced at the Gate. He wondered when his mind had given it a title.

As the Sorting Hat changed hands, the rip in its brim began to speak aloud, "Headmistress, if I may have a word?"

"You may," she answered, retrieving a jar from the nearby mantle. She offered Harry a pinch of Floo Powder and a word of advice, "Go to bed, Mr. Potter."

* * *

Meanwhile, in the hospital wing, Alphonse was frustrated. Since he now understood these people meant him no harm (maybe he hadn't exactly helped, running like a fugitive), he did his best to be cooperative with the nurse. Brother had always been a horrible patient and hadn't Al always told him to just let the doctors help? So when she'd offered him another foul smelling concoction he took it without complaint. And promptly heaved it up again. At least it hadn't tasted like it smelled. She handed him a glass of water to wash out his mouth but when he realized how _thirsty_ he was he tried to drink it all and ended up heaving that, too.

About the only good thing from the entire ordeal was how kindly she'd held his hair (he _totally_ had Ed beat) and the warm, steady hand on his back while his stomach revolted. He could still only barely tolerate the sheet she'd placed over him, but his skin hummed with joy at human contact. However, there would absolutely be no hugging. Really. Alphonse barely knew this lady. It didn't matter how motherly she was.

Now, Poppy was fairly sure she was onto something. She'd done a short rotation in Complementary Medicine at St. Mungo's and most of muggle medicine was complete crockery, but something about ice chips tugged at her mind. Apparently muggles had weak stomachs. After everything they'd put this boy through, the least she could give him was a sweet. The potion he'd just rejected tasted horrible, she knew from experience. So a lemon drop might be just what he needed, especially because it made his face light up so much.

But she never expected that light to fade with rapid decline or tears to spring to his eyes. He started grabbing at his tongue and that just didn't make sense to her and it only increased his sense of panic. He started babbling, pointing at his tongue, asking questions in that language no one understood. One good look, though, had her baffled. His tongue was completely smooth. No taste-buds, nothing. Madam Pomfrey's shocked expression told Alphonse enough and he resigned himself to the disappointment rife in this strange country. For the first time since arriving, he was glad he wasn't at home: at least it hadn't been Winry's pie.

Later they would try again, he knew, to get something down his parched throat. But his hair was stringy, his nails were too long, these sheets were scratchy, he was desperately tired and now he couldn't taste. In fact, he hadn't properly bathed in five years, he thought glumly, he probably smelled, too. Poppy received an unintelligible thank-you and the dismissal of Al's bone-thin back.

* * *

**Thought you'd enjoy this sooner**rather than later. Sorry to leave it on the slightly despondent note. But hey! Longest chapter ever! And the taste-bud disappearance is a real medical phenomenon that occurs in cases of extended disuse. Read _The Man Who Couldn't Eat_ by John Reiner. And thank-you _thank-you_ for your great response. **Nearly 5,****000 views, guys. Whaaaaaat?**


	7. Chapter 7

Harry barely remembered making it back to the ministry but suddenly there was a quill in his hand and he left a message about this new case for the rest of the department, locking the memories in a charmed cabinet for evidence and testimony.

When he finally opened the door to his bedroom, the sight of Ginny blinking blearily in preparation for her morning run pierced through his mental fog like the dawn. The exhaustion persisted, but hope had re-entered the world.

Harry collapsed onto the bed, dragging his wife with him, muttering requests for company as his consciousness faded.

* * *

"Headmaster, if I may have a word..."

It had been more years than Minerva cared to calculate since she'd donned the Sorting Hat. It was really only meant to be a singular incident in the lives of most witches and wizards and so she hadn't given thought to a second plunge. The Hat must have discerned something of merit whilst on Harry's head, and she just began to imagine how many conversations occurred in this office to which he'd been privy.

"You're a dangerous hat," she began, amused by the chuckle that rolled between her ears.

"_There's no need for flattery, Minerva. You have grown into a tempest, yourself...hmm, interesting, interesting..."_

"What is the point of this?" she asked, aiming to get his attention before the Sorting Hat lost itself in her thoughts.

"_Tell me, Minerva, what do you know of Alchemy?"_

"You already know the answer to that."

"_Yes, but you don't. Now you know the reason, you must puzzle out the rhyme. What do you know about alchemy?"_

The sigh which escaped her was both impatient and long-suffering. As the answers swam through her head the Sorting Hat scoffed: It was a branch of potions- _"How very text-book, do try harder,"_ aimed for gold- _"closer,"_ immortality- _"so does everything,"_ power- _"Minerva, what does alchemy _do_?" _And then the cogs started turning. It had started when men tried to turn metal into gold. Take one substance and change it into another. That pillar she'd examined in the hospital wing was structurally _perfect_. It was stone, sure as anything, but it had been curiously pure. _"Potions,"_ the Hat mused, _"does not require great skill in wand work, as I understand. In fact it is rather formulaic, is it not?"_

That enormous circle certainly _was_ an alchemic formula, if not one any of the staff recognized. Al—the _boy_ hadn't performed any spell with which _she_ was familiar, but rather forced the stone to move from one state to another. If _he_ was an Alchemist, then he may not be the victim they all assumed him to be.

The Sorting Hat saw the notions coalesce in her brain faster than she realized them happening—he began protesting her sudden departure before her arm moved to swipe him from her head. His voice followed her mad dash down the hall. She outran it swiftly enough by shifting into the form of a sleek house cat. This was no time to be tired: it was time to keep watch.

It wasn't uncommon to hear that students thought Minerva strict and detached, though her heart twinged more than she'd ever admit when her strict professionalism was openly mistaken for _not caring_. The well of her affection ran deeply, though few students saw. Even more rarely witnessed was the sharp snap of her heart when betrayed. She was a private woman, but she was also very astute. It would hurt terribly to have been wrong about Alphonse, but she would absolutely stand against him with single-minded ferocity when it came to protecting her students.

It took very little of her feline stealth to slip past Poppy undetected. The matron busied herself with writing a note that Minerva suspected would shortly be flown to St. Mungo's Hospital. Padding quietly on silent paws, the Headmistress came at last to the boy's bed.

His back was turned on the rest of the world, curled up weakly in defense, breaths hitching every so often. Minerva's peculiarly marked eyes narrowed in suspicion and she determined not to be taken in by what could very well be an act. When Poppy rose from her chair and exited the room, the Headmistress watched closely for any change in the boy's behavior. Perhaps a little too closely: she underestimated Al's sensitivity. Leveraging herself up with a paw on the bed frame must have caused something to shift because he turned to investigate the disturbance.

There was no way Minerva could have predicted his reaction.

* * *

The dawn of the new day brought a flurry of activity in the Auror's office. Cases had to be reviewed, leads followed up on, people arrested: they really had a full docket. The clean-up of Voldemort's influence was winding down however this only meant that the office now had time for all the _less _life-threatening, highly illegal, very dangerous crime that went on in Wizarding Great Britain. In fact, people were bustling about so quickly that Harry's note was almost dismissed. It was a testament to his fatigue that he hadn't jinxed it to bother the first person who walked in the office that morning (it was the little things that brought laughter to the otherwise serious department).

Normally the Senior Officer on Duty would be tasked with reviewing whatever happened over the course of the night watch. However, seeing as Ron Weasley was the foremost expert on discerning Harry's illegible, sleep-deprived chicken scratch, the job fell to him. He was able to make out something about Hogwarts and torture (Ron had to agree, some of those term papers were _inhumane_) and memories locked in the evidence cabinet. It had become standard practice in the new-and-improved Auror's office to have more than one person periodically review a case in the interest of objectivity, and most found they appreciated a fresh perspective. This made Ron a favorite of many, as he was not afraid to approach a case with a razor Occam himself would be proud of. He probably shouldn't be taking on anything extra, but as most of his cases were held up in paperwork at the moment, and Kingsley looked busy enough as it was, Ron didn't mind retrieving the memories and heading to the office's pensieve.

Ten minutes later he was furiously copying letters of inquiry to be sent to every international contact he had.

* * *

If there was one thing Minerva had _never_ allowed it was the unwelcome presence of someone else's hands upon her person. Human _or_ feline she was very good at evading unsolicited attention. She was, apparently, _much_ less adept at fielding the exuberant joy of a stick-thin 14-year-old. He must have bewitched her, somehow, with that blindingly huge smile. There was no other explanation for her failure to escape.

It wasn't like she could bring out the claws, was it? And anyway, not only had he been gentle (almost reverent) with every pass of his hand on her soft fur, he'd _laughed_. Perhaps she'd been a little hasty in her earlier judgement. Minerva knew every shade of juvenile laughter and could detect nothing malicious in his-it was pure. Her fur was even still damp from the tears that leaked over while he'd hugged her close, mumbling excited little phrases in that language of his.

It was good to hear the hall ring with the echoes of Al's joy.

But Poppy better not breathe a _word_ about it when she returned. And she _definitely_ wasn't purring.

* * *

**It's aliiiiiiiive! **-Aaand short, I know, I'm sorry. Writer's block had a hold on me with one of my other stories and I try to keep them updated in order, thus the delay. But I know it's been a while and didn't want you to wait any longer, so here's a little bit of Al happiness to tide you over. The idea popped into my head and I couldn't resist! A number of you have been asking about Ed: you...might not expect what you'll eventually receive on the Edward front. So feel free to leave a review.


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